The Transformation of Great American School Districts: How Big Cities Are Reshaping Public Education
by Charles Taylor Kerchner, Mark Blyth, and William Lowe Boyd, editors
(Harvard Education Press, 2008)

In The Transformation of Great American School Districts, William Lowe Boyd, Charles Taylor Kerchner, and Mark Blyth argue that urban education reform can best be understood as a long process of institutional change, rather than as a series of failed projects. They examine the core assumptions that underlay the Progressive Era model of public education – apolitical governance, local control, professional hierarchy, and the logic of confidence – and show that recent developments in school governance have challenged virtually all of these assumptions.

Drawing on case studies of five urban districts – Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles – they trace the rise of new ideas and trends that are reshaping the institution of public education: mayoral control, shifting civic coalitions, federal and state involvement, standards-based accountability, and the role of educational outsiders in district administration.

The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Great Organizations
by Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ira Chaleff, and Ron Riggio, editors
(Jossey-Bass, 2008)
 
Leadership is a topic that has been well-examined by scholars, consultants, and the media. By contrast, the study of followers has been largely ignored. As this book reveals, the leader-follower dynamic is far more complex than has been previously imagined.

The Art of Followership puts leader-follower interaction at the forefront of discussion. It examines the multiple roles followers play and their often complex relationship to leaders. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners from the burgeoning field of leadership/followership studies, this groundbreaking book outlines how followers contribute to effective leadership and to organizations overall.
 

Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service
by Mary Poplin
(IVP Books, 2008)
 
Lifelong educator Mary Poplin, after experiencing a newfound awakening to faith, sent a letter to Calcutta asking if she could visit Mother Teresa and volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity. She received a response saying, "You are welcome to share in our works of love for the poorest of the poor." So in the spring of 1996, Poplin spent two months in Calcutta as a volunteer. There she observed Mother Teresa's life of work and service to the poor, participating in the community's commitments to simplicity and mercy. Mother Teresa's unabashedly religious work stands in countercultural contrast to the limitations of our secular age.

Poplin's journey gives us an inside glimpse into one of the most influential lives of the twentieth century and the lessons Mother Teresa continues to offer. Upon Poplin's return, she soon discovered that God was calling her to serve the university world with the same kind of holistic service with which Mother Teresa served Calcutta.
 

Manage Your Career: 10 Keys to Survival and Success When Interviewing and on the Job
by Vijay Sathe
(Business Expert Press, 2008)
 
This book gives you the keys to survival and success as your career progresses from one job to the next in the same organization or in different organizations – be they for-profit, nonprofit, government, or volunteer. It can help you to avoid the many traps and pitfalls you will encounter along your career path and guide you toward increased personal effectiveness during all three stages of the job cycle – when you are interviewing for a new job, as a newcomer, and thereafter.

Whether you are preparing to enter the workforce for the first time or are in an early-, middle-, or a later-career stage, this book will show you how to avoid jobs and organizations that are not right for you. It will also help you to go beyond survival to achieve success by doing your job well and making other contributions to your organization in ways that improve your job performance, job satisfaction, happiness at work, and personal and professional growth.
 

Theorizing Scriptures: New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon
by Vincent Wimbush
(Rutgers University Press, 2008)
 
Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence.

In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. Contributors hail from a wide array of academic fields and geographic locations and include such noted academics as Susan Harding, Elisabeth Shüssler Fiorenza, and William L. Andrews.
 

Evaluation in Action: Interviews with Expert Evaluators
by Christina Christie, Jody Fitzpatrick, Melvin M. Mark, editors
(Sage Publications, Inc., 2008)
 
Evaluation in Action: Interviews With Expert Evaluators is the first book to go behind the scenes of real evaluations to explore the issues faced – and the decisions made – by notable evaluators in the field. Drawing from the popular “Exemplars” section in the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE), the book’s 12 interviews with evaluators illustrate a variety of evaluation practices in different settings and include commentary and analysis on what the interviews teach about evaluation practice.
 

What Counts as Credible Evidence in Applied Research and Evaluation Practice?
by Stewart I. Donaldson, Christina A. Christie, and Melvin M. Mark, editors
(Sage Publications, Inc., 2008)
 
What Counts as Credible Evidence in Applied Research and Evaluation Practice? thoroughly covers one of the most fundamental issues facing applied research and evaluation practice today – what counts as sound evidence for decision making? An internationally renowned line-up of authors explore a wide range of issues that address the fundamental challenges of designing and executing high quality applied research and evaluation studies. Readers will come away from this volume with a new and clear understanding of the philosophical, theoretical, methodological, political, and ethical dimensions of gathering credible evidence to answer fundamental research and evaluation questions across diverse disciplinary boundaries and “real world” contexts.
 

Attitudes and Attitude Change
by William D. Crano and Radmila Prislin, editors
(Psychology Press, 2008)
 
This volume assembles a distinguished group of international scholars whose chapters on classic and emerging issues in research on attitudes provide an excellent introduction for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The book’s chapters cover all of the most critical features of attitude measurement, attitude development, and attitude change. Implicit and explicit approaches to measurement and conceptualization are featured throughout, making this one of the most up-to-date treatments of attitude theory and research currently available.

The comprehensive coverage of the central topics in this important field provides a useful text in advanced courses on persuasion or attitude change.